The Importance of Educational Reform in Panama

It is important, therefore, to avoid an educational reform that, in the name of a single thought, only seeks to legitimize and strengthen the dominant ideological forms of the economically powerful sectors. From this, it follows that this is the action of what Paulo Freire calls education as a practice of freedom. It is a form of education that develops the student's ability to think critically, to understand the national and personal problematic with its contradictions (such as social inequalities), while exercising creativity to face and overcome this problematic. Students in the classroom. By Juan Jované Economist. The idea of improving education, that is, some kind of educational reform, is without a doubt an objective that no one doubts. In turn, this generates different approaches to solving these problems. The above means that education in social sciences, if it seeks to form citizens with the ability to discern, needs the scientific and free debate of these diverse visions. All this means critical thinking ability. Undoubtedly, an educational reform like the one defended in this article must be understood as a human right, which must also be addressed by practicing human rights. It refers to the development of a school in which the student, with their knowledge and those they must learn to develop, faces concrete problems, which they try to solve creatively. However, the problem is to precisely define the nature of the educational transformations that would be necessary to achieve a national, democratic development with social justice and full respect for nature. It is at this level that some of the objectives that the current Minister of Education, Lucy Molinar, has hinted at generate serious doubts. In our judgment, the starting point of educational transformations is found in a very simple idea: it is the function of society to generate the material, social, and spiritual conditions that allow the full development of all human capacities. This leads to a first problem: the idea repeatedly expressed by Ms. Molinar to the effect that the central objective of the educational reform is the link between the demand for labor from the dominant economic sector and education. No one denies that an education aimed at the development of human capacities must include training that develops the productive capacities of students, including sufficient creativity to introduce innovations that enhance the development of the productive forces and forms of production that allow the conservation of nature. However, it is also part of education to empower human beings in their ability to discern and, therefore, to choose freely, including in this the field of social relations. This is obviously an anti-democratic position that assumes the existence of a single thought in the field of social sciences and pedagogy. This means a universal right that cannot be harmed by an educational structure that differentiates the education of subordinate sectors, which should be socially 'passivated' with the education of dominant sectors, prepared for the exercise of hegemony. Let's get ready for the debate on educational reform! It is not about maintaining a 'banking' education in Freire's sense. A single thought can only lead a country to authoritarianism. In the field of social sciences, including economic sciences, it is obvious that there are diverse paradigms. This means abandoning education that insistently repeats purely abstract concepts, dissociated from the reality of students, offering off-the-shelf solutions. In that concept, the student cannot be seen as a passive being in which 'knowledge' is deposited, which they will later have to show that they can memoristically repeat in an exam. It is, then, the faculty to decide and democratically choose in relation to the type of society in which the country must develop. She has declared very clearly that in the debate on educational reform there will be no 'up the street and down the street'. The citizen, consequently, must have the possibility to participate in the productive process, but also the possibility to have a leading role in the democratic process of deciding on the country's economic, social, and political development style. The objective is, therefore, not simply to ensure an abundant, cheap, and docile labor force for the accumulation needs of the dominant sectors. From this follows a second problem, which can be seen in the proposals of Ms. Molinar. This means diverse visions, as Schumpeter called them, that value historical, social, economic, political, and environmental problems in a differentiated way.